It has been long proven that one of the most effective means of communication is through the use of visual aids such as charts, graphs, drawings, and other visual materials. Particularly, the use of flip charts and “butcher paper” have facilitated the conveyance of thoughts, ideas, and plans, and have been used to convey information from presenters to audiences. With the improvements in technology, we have seen presentation devices such as overhead projectors, dry erase easels, dry erase boards, and, of course, the frequent use of Power Point presentations.
Further, and in response to a significantly more mobile workforce, we have seen the development of the laptop, the portable projector, and the portable easel with flipchart paper. Particularly, 3M markets a portable pad of paper that allows for sheets to be used and then removed from the pad so that the subsequent underlying sheet can then be further used. A disadvantage of 3M's product is the need to have a significant number of sheets for practical use in contrast with maintaining a fairly lightweight means of transportation. Although generally lightweight and portable, having too many sheets creates practical weight limitations.
To overcome the limitations of the number of non-reusable sheets in a portable paper easel, there have been some attempts to use dry erase board material in a portable format. For example, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2001/0040207-A1 is directed toward a portable display board system that shows a writing surface that could comprise a dry erase board with two panels that can be collapsed for carrying. U.S. Pat. No. 6,648,051 is directed toward a foldable dry erase surface. U.S. Pat. No. 5,207,581 is directed to a roll erasable medium that can be pulled down and cut into separate sheets. Typically, attempts for a plurality of sheets to be in a foldable easel arrangement have not been achieved due to the fact that dry erase material comes in too flexible a medium such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,251,500-B1, or too rigid an inflexible material due to a ceramic or other rigid substrate for the dry erase board.
Although these attempts to create portable dry erase boards have had some success, a number of problems are still associated with these inventions. For example, over time, the surface of the dry erase board begins to degrade and the dry erase board tends to retain traces of the dry erase markers. This residual dry erase ink produces an effect called “ghosting.” While ghosting can be minimized by cleaning solutions, the problem will increase over time. In spite of these attempts, there is still a need for a portable easel having a plurality of reusable dry erase sheets. Additionally, there is a need for a portable easel that is easy to transport and has an effective writing surface of many sheets.